Computer Help - Please

[thrasherfox]

Well darn...... CPU temp is good, bout the only thing I could do do to help is get you drunk so you forget about it lol.. live close? hehehehe.

Ok, not sure if this has been covered yet, but seriously, Windows "should" be able to handle it.... have you tried moving every device from the computer that is not required and booting it up, shutting it down, adding one device.. booting it up.. shutting it down... adding another device.. booting it up.. etc.

I have experienced in the past that sometimes when you have numerous items of hardware, about the only way to get the system to reconfigure assignment is to remove everything and add it back one piece at a time.

I did however have a client once that had a fricken internal modem that would lock the computer up because of an IRQ conflict, in that particular situation, it was easier to switch the client to an external modem.

They had the external modem on hand and it was cheaper for me to set that up than for them to pay me additional money to continue trouble shooting the problem.

If you are still thinking that changing the Ethernet card's IRQ might help, I believe that in most system bios, you have a configuration option that you can specify that a specific PCI slot is reserved with a specific IRQ and no other device can use that IRQ.

Just make sure you plug your PCI NIC into the correct slot and that should force the change, (i.e. say PCI slot 1 is configured to use IRQ 11, then what ever device you plug into slot 1 should be configured bi the bios for IRQ 11)

Ok, I am going by memory, I haven’t shut my computer down to verify this, it is midnight and I am too tired to lol. But check that out and see if that helps, or if that is an option.

 

[stkr00]

Getting drunk sounds like a LOT more fun than this.

I have been in the BIOS, so I know exactly what you're talking about with the reserved PCI slot/IRQ stuff. Haven't tried that yet, though.

I have uninstalled the audio card and ethernet adapter by:
1. Uninstalling within Device Manger.
2. Removing the drivers.
3. Pulling the cards out of the PCI slots.
4. Installing the cards in completely different slots.
5. Rebooting.
6. Choosing the new updated driver for the Ethernet card.

And windows still put everything on IRQ-9.

I about ready to start hacking into the registry with regedit, and just see what happens. The Bios has a selection for PnP OS, which, if selected as NO, will force windows into a non-ACPI mode, but only with a clean install. This would mean reinstalling ALL of my software, and I really don't feel like doing that just yet.

I partitioned my hard drive initially, and the second half is virtually empty, so I may try doing a clean install of windows on that drive, then install MotGP-2, GameSpy, Netscape, Zone Alarm, etc...and then see if device manager will let me assign the IRQ values I want. It's worth a try I guess.

Thanks for your help,

 

[†WÃ￾§†ëD]

you mean you installed windoze with the PnP disabled?

 

[stkr00]

you mean you installed windoze with the PnP disabled?

No, I haven't done that yet. I am going to chenge the BIOS to say no PnP OS. When you do this for a clean install, it will not allow the automatic steering of IRQ's. Once done, you can then go to device manager and individually select automatic IRQ steering for each component as you see fit. Ultimately it gives you the option to either use it, or not based on you system needs.

That's the way they should have made it in the first place.

I'm going to try it on my other hard drive and see what happens BEFORE I format my normal hard drive and start over. Ultimately, I'll be running the PC with two operating systems. Some people I've known do this with Unix and Windows.

Worst case: PC gets messed up, and I have to start from scratch anyway.

 

[stkr00]

Quick update:

I changed the BIOS to a non-Pnp OS, forced the IRQ's for my PCI slots with the Audio card and Ethernet card. Installed Windows 2000 again as a second operating system. Now when the computer boots up, I just choose the version of Windows 2000 I want. I then had to reinstall all the software for Netscape, MotoGP2, GameSpy, Road Runner, and the drivers for all the hardware.

The IRQ issue is resolved between the high traffic components during on-line gaming. The second OS now uses IRQ steering through IRQ-9 for the low traffic components.

I played MotoGP-2 on-line for 2 hours, and the controller didn't hang up once. That was even with a PING of 600ms vs. the normal 200ms PING of the other game rooms.

Now that I know it will resolve the IRQ problem, I just have to back up my personal files, data, bookmarks, etc...from the C: drive, and then I'll completely format the hard drive and start from scratch. It's nice have two seperate hard drives configured into three logical drives. It gives you the flexibility to play around with stuff on the extra drive, without messing up your current one.

Thanks for everyone's help in this. I still think you could use regedit to change the Windows Registry, and effect the same results, but I don't know which part to change. There has to be a way other than a complete clean install of Windows.

 

[†WÃ￾§†ëD]

so ultimately its the fact that with PnP enabled on clean install, win2k steers three cards in one direction?

 

[stkr00]

Yeah, basically that's what happened, but wait...THERE'S MORE!

I posted this in the MotGP-2 topic:
Well, I raced for about 5 hours today and no controller problems, but guess what?

It was on the original Windows installation. When I realized I forgot to install the firewall on the new installation, I installed it, and then went to play MotoGP2. Same controller problems as before.

I uninstalled the firewall, and everything was fine. Now I have the firewall completely uninstalled for both verions of Windows, and they both work fine while playing online.

Lots of trouble just to find out it was the firewall, but at least I know now.
[/QUOTE]

Now if that isn't a bunch of shiot to find out after all that work, I don't know what is. At least I have some options now that I know how to correct it.